


Cross My Heart And Hope To Die

by kycantina



Category: The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Genre: Gen, Written for a Class, thought I'd put it up here while I slave away at midterms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-24
Updated: 2019-10-24
Packaged: 2021-01-02 12:20:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21161558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kycantina/pseuds/kycantina
Summary: He still carries Ted Lavender, after all these years.





	Cross My Heart And Hope To Die

He still carries Ted Lavender, after all these years. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries his country’s disdain, he still carries the weight of the war. He carries it all bitterly, his own devastation, the poverty of an entire nation. Jimmy carries it all within a needle, a line of powder, an alleyway instead of facing a soup kitchen full of conscientious desenters. He carries the flashbacks and rigor of war, he carries the ground under his feet, trading out jungle mud for torn up New York asphalt. Jimmy carries it all, in a way the VA tells him “is normal for someone who’s been through his kind of trauma.” They tell him not to worry about it. He does. Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries bullets in his back and Martha in his heart and Lavender in head, on his mind. 

He carries Ted home, or as close as he can get him. Jimmy Cross carries himself to the graveyard, carries himself to his last waking memories. He ends in Lavender’s bedroom, in boxes of his childhood things his mother “thought he’d want to have.” He doesn’t, but he carries them nonetheless. 

Jimmy would carry it all in his stride, but that’s easier said than done. He’s never been good at school, but fixing cars won’t put food on the table, not when you can’t be on your knees without hyperventilating.

Lavender was going to be a teacher, and work with poetry in the ways he always wanted. Jimmy carries these words, heavy and unspoken with him too.


End file.
